Merge pull request #1318 from USRSE/sandragesing-patch-2

Create executive-director.md

pages/about/executive-director.md

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+---
+layout: page
+title: Executive Director
+permalink: /about/executive-director/
+subtitle: Sustainability for the US-RSE Association 
+menubar: about
+menubar_toc: true
+set_last_modified: true
+---
+
+
+### Executive Director
+
+Sandra Gesing
+[sandra\@us-rse.org](mailto:[email protected])
+
+### Message from the Executive Director October 2023
+
+Dear US-RSE members and allies,
+
+I’m honored and thrilled to be appointed the inaugural Executive Director of US-RSE. My whole work life has been 
+immersed around software with me starting already at high-school with programming. I enjoyed working in industry as 
+an administrator, system developer and head of a systems programming group for over a decade and then I switched 
+from industry to research completing my PhD in a bioinformatics group. I have been an RSE, research faculty and 
+senior research scientist with a major focus on research software in the last 17 years. This moment is very special to me 
+because it is about a community I’m incredibly passionate about, and this community feels like home. Being a part 
+of it means having a space for discussions, a space for learning and support of a non-traditional career path. 
+With my resume, I often felt like a unicorn – not within US-RSE though.
+
+The last five years have shown how much we all can achieve together as a community, and we went from around 20 members 
+in 2018 to nearly 2000 in 2023. US-RSE is a vibrant community evident in the activities on Slack, working groups, 
+organized workshops, participation in community calls – to name just a few. Next week will be our first in-person 
+conference ever and I am so impressed by the energy of contributors, organization committee members, volunteers and 
+the sponsors. The conference is sold out and as a General Chair I am relieved and grateful for everyone’s patience as 
+we navigated these unchartered waters.
+
+We have more unchartered waters in front of us - with a lot of support that will kick-off our exciting journey. 
+Thanks to the Alfred Sloan Foundation, we have for the first time substantial funding for community activities, grants 
+and awards. Additionally, we can hire staff, which is a full-time soon-to-be-announced Community Manager and me as a 
+half-time Executive Director. I am convinced that our spectacular growth of membership and volunteer work needs this 
+support to keep the grass-root character of US-RSE without burning out volunteers and get measures in place that can 
+facilitate innovative ideas and activities – especially also assuring the sustainability of the organization.
+
+Much of my work will be focused on the sustainability of the organization and my vision is that we achieve financial 
+sustainability with different tiers of funding and contributions. Volunteer work will stay a cornerstone of US-RSE. 
+Together with the community manager I will contribute to this thriving community to address pain points and support 
+activities that the community would like to accomplish. We are not alone in this journey. The world-wide movement is 
+impressive with RSE associations in Africa, Australia/New Zealand, Belgium, Canada, Germany, The Netherlands, Nordic 
+countries and the UK. Though at times, we may feel like unicorns, we are part of an ever-expanding, diverse and extraordinary 
+community. 
+
+I’m looking forward to this journey with you and I’m grateful for any ideas and input! Please don’t hesitate to contact me.
+
+Sincerely,
+Sandra Gesing